The Upper Body Strength Program for Functional Fitness (Part 2)

I have had exactly zero people tell me that the first portion of this program was too easy, so I made sure part 2 of the Upper Body Strength Program for Functional Fitness was much harder. You’re welcome. I can tell you that by now you should be hitting PR’s in your upper body strength numbers, and quite a few of you should be hitting your first strict pull ups. Keep reading to see what we have in store for you.

This portion is designed to be done after the Upper Body Strength Program for Functional Fitness (Part 1), but you can start here at part two provided you don’t mind a lot of lifting volume specifically targeted at the upper body.

As the title implies this program will be designed to increase our upper body strength. Specifically, I want you to be able to get your first strict pull ups, and handstand push ups, as well as generally increasing overall upper body strength.

For the more advanced athlete I expect that you will be hitting PR’s in the number of strict pull ups you can perform as well as all of your upper body pressing movements.

And for those that love deadlifting and squatting don’t be afraid, there is still plenty of lower body and olympic lifts in there as well, they just aren’t the main focus of this program. Realistically, I expect that you will set some small PRs for deadlifts, and squat, but you should be making much greater progress in your overhead lifts, and pull ups.

Why an Upper Body Strength Program for Functional Fitness?

I have found that after 5 plus years of coaching and 11 years of participating in functional fitness that the vast majority of athletes have an upper body strength deficit.

We know from research that strength has a profound effect on overall athletic performance, and as functional fitness athletes I’ve found that we tend to focus on the full body lifts to the detriment of upper body pressing and pulling.

This is understandable as larger compound movements are generally more beneficial than focusing on the smaller lifts. However, this is all a moot point if the athlete cannot perform pull ups, or heavy upper body work as many benchmark wods will require them.

The bottom line is if you want to start Rx’ing all your WODs you will need significant upper body strength.

The Upper Body Strength Program for Functional Fitness (Part 2)

Part 2 is going to be 4 weeks in length, bringing the overall program to 8 weeks so far. This program will be a total of 3 months long, once part three is released. In my experience 12 weeks is the perfect length to really gain significant strength.

Here is the PDF Download for the Upper Body Strength Program for Functional Fitness (Part 2)

You’ll notice that I’ve included the first four weeks in this download in case you want to start from the beginning.

Week 1

For those of you following along at home you’ll notice that the volume has slightly increased in our strength moves. By now these sets will be fairly challenging.

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I have found that the easiest way to set this up is to perform the strength moves in an alternating fashion. For Monday, I would warm up, do a set of pull ups, then take 30-45 sec of rest and perform a set of weighted dips.

This ensures that you don’t waste too much time, but if you want to charge through all sets of one movement and then switch to the next you can, it will just take a little while longer.

I have found through my own testing that these sessions will take around 60 minutes or so, including a nice warm up and cool down session.

Week 6

I have also changed the running WOD to 200m intervals. This is for a reason. I find that a large majority of athletes really never work this portion of their energy system.

Most WODs are actually fueled in large part by the aerobic and anaerobic energy system, leaving the PCr system somewhat neglected. These sprints will remedy that.

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Week 7

Per our usual programming style this is going to be the highest volume, and most intense week. You’ll be doing a lot of strength volume, and the WODs have been reduced slightly to allow for more emphasis on the strength moves.

For the bonus work I recommend taking at least 5 minutes after the WOD before trying to tackle this piece. You’ll still want to perform quality reps and if you try and do this immediately after the WOD you most likely won’t be performing optimal technique.

Week 8

This is our deload. As in any deload we need to keep the intensity relatively high relative to our 5RM, but we drop the overall volume by 30-40% to allow our body to recover.

Knowing athletes, I always recommend avoiding the old “adding in a little extra work,” on these weeks. You really do need this time to recover as this is the time when you body physically repairs structures.

Think of it this way. The previous 3 weeks puts your body in a position where it can actually get stronger in the 4th week, as long as you give it the time and nutrients it needs.

Final Thoughts

Those of you who regularly follow the website will know that I always recommend that you put just as much thought and effort into your program outside of the gym as you do inside it.

I recommend you read this article on nutrition, to make sure you have a solid understanding of the basics. You can also download this calculator to make sure you are eating enough calories and the correct ratio of macronutrients.

You would also be smart to read this article that discusses the scientific data on recovery practices. Spoiler alert, I bet you’re using that foam roller wrong, and you probably shouldn’t be using ice or cold baths.

You now have everything you need to get out there and start getting jacked. If you have any questions then put them in the comments below where I can answer them quickly.

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